


Won't Let Go

by lavvyan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: John Farr, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-16
Updated: 2009-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:29:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavvyan/pseuds/lavvyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"This isn't how I imagined touching you again."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Won't Let Go

**Author's Note:**

> Set between Synch by Leah and Out of It by sabinelagrande. Missing scene to Leah's How it Works.

There are days when Rodney really, really hates his life. Days when he loses track of a vital breakthrough because his train of thought gets derailed by someone rutting against him. Days when he gets told, none too gently, that he's too valuable to risk his health researching an Ancient outpost on another planet. Days like this one, when he's sitting on a too-plushy sofa watching Cameron Mitchell gnaw on Daniel Jackson's neck. Again.

They've been going at it for hours, Cameron's Sympathy Cycle kicking in almost as soon as he was through the door. Sweet as that was, it rendered Rodney's presence entirely obsolete.

He gives his cock a few morose jerks. Not that watching two hot guys have a go at each other – and another one, and another one – isn't hot; Cameron and Daniel could almost be twins. Live porn. But Rodney's already had enough sex to last him several life times, his own body about as far from Receiving as it can get, and he just wants to go home.

He's gearing up to point out that he isn't needed, _again,_ when his cell phone starts to play the gratingly cheerful tune of _Wormhole X-Treme,_ which means it's Stargate Command, which means it's probably important.

It is.

~~~

'Dr. McKay, you need to come to the Mountain, quick, it's a matter of life and death!' aren't exactly words Rodney _likes_ to hear, but they beat watching Cameron and Daniel play tandem. Still, he doesn't think much of it – that time Sgt. Siler tried to climb the French president on his tour of the SGC was also declared a 'matter of life and death' – until he's hurried into the infirmary by two very pale marines.

"All right, what's the-" he begins… and then he stops, right there in the doorway, barely noticing one of the marines walk into his back.

For a handful of seconds, he has a moment of absolute sensory crispness. He smells the infirmary, antiseptic and sweat and plaster. He hears the beeping of monitors, the rustling of sheets, the curt footsteps of the nurses. He sees the gurney shoved haphazardly against the wall next to a bed, and the man lying in that bed, grey-skinned and gaunt and obviously drugged out of his mind, hooked up to just about every monitor and IV-stand the infirmary has to offer.

"John," he breathes, and the world speeds up again.

"He's in orbihormonic shock," Keller says, "you need to-

"Yes, yes, I know. What the hell happened?" Rodney demands, already chucking his shirt and reaching for his fly. A balding guy in a green jumpsuit clears his throat and crosses his hands behind his back.

"Colonel Sheppard started Cycling about a week into our trip back to Pegasus," Jumpsuit explains. "None of our more… _open_," he grimaces, "Receptors were compatible. He kept telling us to get Rodney McKay, even when he was half-delirious."

"And yet you didn't." Rodney shoves down his pants, then curses and starts to toe off his shoes, flailing for balance as his legs tangle.

"Careful." Keller steadies him, her grip on his elbow surprisingly strong. Even more surprising is the way her touch almost makes him flinch. "You can't help him if you hurt yourself."

"I'm sorry, but none of those involved on my ship were aware of your role within the SGC," Jumpsuit says stiffly. "We would have turned around if we had."

Rodney scoffs. "Yes, well, let's hope your obliviousness doesn't cost a good man his life, hmm?" He kicks his socks haphazardly under the chair that holds the messy pile of his clothes, then he climbs into the bed. Jumpsuit is still sputtering, but all noise fades into the background as Rodney reaches out to touch.

John is naked underneath the blanket, his skin cold and slick with sweat. His body shifts bonelessly towards Rodney's weight, and his smell is all wrong, drugs and sickness and strangely, plastic. His face is slack and he's far too thin, and Rodney swallows against the unexpected pain of seeing him like this.

He's dimly aware of the guy in the jumpsuit saying he needs to go back to Atlantis and his ship before Keller shoos him out of the infirmary, but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters but John's cool, clammy skin. His hand is shaking a little as he runs it down John's side. He can feel each of John's ribs, and he screws his eyes shut for a moment, takes a deep breath. _I can do this._ John's cock is soft, and as unresponsive as the rest of him. Rodney caresses it for a moment, then he reaches down further and cradles John's balls in his hand.

"Rodney," Keller says softly. Rodney sighs.

"This is going to take a while." His voice sounds thick, not quite like his own. "Why don't you go do… something?" he finishes lamely, unable to look at her.

"Okay, Rodney." There's a brief pause. "Call me if you need anything."

He nods, and after a moment he can hear her walk away. Rodney lets his head drop to rest on John's shoulder. One hand is still cupping John's balls. The other he worms under John's back – a frighteningly easy thing to do – before he throws a leg across John's, trying to get as much of his body in contact with John's as possible. If that doesn't pull him out…

"This isn't how I imagined touching you again." He waits. "You're an idiot."

John doesn't reply.

~~~

John keeps teetering between life and death for two more days.

Rodney can barely stand to look at him. Even mindless with lust, even blissed out and asleep, John was still… _John._ But this? This is just a body, alive but empty. Too thin, too cold, too still to bear more than a passing resemblance to the man Rodney has been trying so hard to forget. He's thought about it, what he might do if John ever came back and got his head out of his ass, how maybe John would say that he wanted Rodney and Rodney would bribe and blackmail his way onto the Atlantis expedition, and they could, maybe, if John wanted, they could…

But now John is back, and it's nothing like Rodney's half-ashamed imagination. John is limp and lifeless and barely breathing on his own, and Rodney can't stand to watch him die.

So he looks away, even as he tangles his fingers in John's hair, as he rubs the smooth skin behind John's balls, as he brushes his thumb over John's left nipple. He looks at the monitors and their cryptic readouts. He looks at the sheets, white and crisp and smelling of starch, and at the food he eats without tasting it, and at the IV-bags that slowly drip their fluid into John's veins. At the panic button, unobtrusive next to the light switch by the door.

Well out of reach from any of the beds. Not for the first time, Rodney wonders about the morons that designed this facility.

He's petting John's balls again, their soft weight strangely comforting, when John's hips twitch. Rodney stills for a moment, holds his breath until John's hips twitch again, and then he's blinking fast, licking his lips as he brings his hand to John's cock and starts to massage it gently.

It takes a while, but slowly, John's cock starts to fill.

"Yes, thank you, _finally,_" Rodney rasps, eyes burning and nose tingling.

John's skin is far too pale, but it feels a little warmer, a little healthier. Is his breath coming faster? Does he know that Rodney is with him?

Does it matter?

John is responding to Rodney's touch, however unconsciously, and Rodney's eyes are fixed on his long, pale cock as he rubs and squeezes, as he brushes his thumb over the slit to smear pre-cum over the head. John is responding, _finally,_ and Rodney doesn't tease, pulls out all the stops to bring John to release as fast as he can, jerking him off and in the end just leaning down, taking John's cock into his mouth and sucking as hard as he can until John comes.

Rodney gentles him through it, licks him clean, strokes his inner thigh, anything not to look at John's face. This _has_ to mean that John is coming out of it, easing into his normal Cycle, but a part of Rodney is still afraid that when he looks up, John's face will be as slack and lifeless as it has been for the past 56 hours.

Heart in his throat, Rodney takes a deep breath and forces his hand to rest loosely on John's thigh. Then he looks up.

John's eyes are open. They're staring glassily at the ceiling as he catches his breath.

Rodney's heart skips a beat.

"Are you even in there?" he asks, wiping the corner of his mouth and pretending he doesn't know everything about the very real possibilities of brain damage. So John has been in a coma for two days, after two weeks of Cycling without an outlet, hormones raging through his weakening body with enough force to drive any man insane or otherwise irreparably damage his-

"Duodecillion," John mutters hazily, and that's enough for Rodney to pull him close and hold him tight, because _yes._

Yes, okay.


End file.
